Elevation
by EmeraldCelebi
Summary: Ye olde "stuck in an elevator" trope.


It was an unassuming day in the Musashino First, a few days into the transition out of the holiday season. Kids were getting into the swing of a new semester, adults were going back to work after the break, and the library was open again and circulating books just as fervently as before. The library had some catchup to do on the books that were returned over the break, so team Dojo and the other task force teams' work tended to range toward their librarian duties rather than defense or training. Raids from the Media Improvement Committee were statistically lower this time of year, so the libraries felt safe in lowering security just a little in favor of getting more actual library work done.

Presently, Iku finished loading up returned books onto a cart and pushed it over to the elevator, headed to the higher floor for shelving. Before the doors could fully close, a hand grabbed the side and stopped them, prompting the elevator to open again. Dojo stepped in beside her with a list of missing books to run a brief search for.

"I'll go up too; most of these should be in the same section on the second floor. Somebody probably just misplaced them on the shelves." Iku nodded absently, leaning on her cart of books.

"Isn't the atmosphere so lethargic, just after a break? There's so much work to do, but after getting time off you just want to take it easy…" Iku mused. Dojo shook his head in light reprimand.

"That may be, but we can't take it easy. The sooner we get this work done," he gestured at her cart, "the sooner we can balance our shifts with defense work again." Iku sighed and scuffed the toe of her shoe on the ground, resigned to the inevitable. It was no secret that Iku preferred the security work to the librarian duties, but she couldn't deny that any and all practice with the regular librarian tasks was invaluable in refreshing her poor memory.

"Okay…" For a long, still moment, nothing moved. Iku looked up at the closed elevator doors in front of them in confusion. "Is this elevator taking a long time?" On cue, the whole car jolted as though coming to an abrupt halt, and it's passengers were thrown into stunned silence. A few tense seconds ticked by, and when neither the elevator nor its doors budged, Dojo cursed under his breath and started hitting the buttons, testing to see if anything would work. Receiving no response, he hit the emergency call button. It took a moment for someone to pick up on the other end, but Dojo was able to explain the situation and request assistance. Since nobody was readily available at the time to repair the elevator, someone would have to be called in.

"It might take some time for them to get to the library and fix the problem, but we'll have somebody come as soon as possible." Dojo suppressed an impatient sigh.

"I understand. Thank you." No sooner had the line disconnected than the lights in the car went out, casting them into inky blackness. Iku startled, unprepared for the sudden blackout in their confined space. She adjusted, breathing deeply to calm her rioting heartbeat and settle her nerves. Iku wasn't claustrophobic, but the small and dark suspended elevator car definitely made her uncomfortable. Dojo turned to where he supposed she was standing right after the lights went out.

"Sorry; looks like we'll just have to deal with this for a while." When she didn't respond, he could hear her deep breathing, just a little too loud and quick for normal respiration. He suddenly remembered the last time they were in a similar situation- during the Touma mission, when the three of them were in total darkness in midair, and Iku confessed her discomfort to offer Touma-sensei some solidarity. He hesitated. What was the proper way to comfort someone in this situation? Holding them tightly seemed like it would be counterintuitive, if the confined space was the problem. He stood on the other side of the book cart from her and groped around blindly for her hand, finally finding it resting on the handle. She jumped a little when he grabbed her hand, but relaxed realizing it was Dojo's familiar warmth encasing her fingers. "Okay?" he asked, looking for confirmation. Iku exhaled slowly and smiled to herself.

"Yeah." She curled her fingers around his and squeezed gently by way of thanks. Just like in the previous instance, she was glad for the darkness; it was still somewhat embarrassing to admit how deeply his presence affected her, calming her down almost instantaneously. Not sure how else to reassure him, she opted for silence, breathing easy. If her pulse continued to beat just a little too briskly, he was none the wiser, for now.

Looking down at where their hands were joined, the outlines of their skin just barely visible in the tiny sliver of light let in through the crack in the doors, Dojo worried if his comfort was superficial. Her breathing seemed to be back to normal, but in the low light he otherwise couldn't get a good read on how anxious she was. It seemed inappropriate to ask- and he knew by now, even if she was still feeling nervous, she wouldn't admit to it in a typical show of macho bravado. Things were certainly different after they started dating, but not quite so fundamentally different. Dojo considered his next course of action for a painfully insecure moment, swiping his thumb carefully over her knuckles. When he cleared his throat, he heard the shuffle indicating her raising her head to look at his barely-visible silhouette.

"Do you… is there anyplace…" he sounded stilted and awkward, but pushed on. "Is there anyplace you'd like to go? On our next day off?" He could tell (rather than see) when she cocked her head in confusion at this, caught off-guard by the sudden offer. "Because now would be the time to discuss it, while we're stuck," he clarified automatically. He made the suggestion with the intention of distracting her from their current predicament with conversation, but encountered the frustration of not being able to make out her expression. _Would talking only make her more nervous?_

On Iku's end, the thumb rubbing comforting lines across the back of her hand was distracting enough. The gesture seemed to be subconscious, but it was just that instinctive affection that felt so intimate; especially in the enclosed space, with nobody else around to see it. Iku tried to focus her attention away from her excited heart rate long enough to consider his question.

"Um, no place in particular…" _Was there someplace?_ Every now and then, she would hear of some good new date location from her dormmates or Shibasaki and secretly file away the information to look into later, but in the present situation, her spinning brain couldn't grasp any names. On the verge of a headache, she gave up and let out a nervous laugh. "I-I guess I just can't think of anyplace right now. Can you, Instructor Dojo?" She passed the ball, trying to conceal her unease and failing.

He noticed, and his thumb faltered a little in it's path across her hand, if only for an instant.

"I haven't thought about it." Usually, Dojo was one for careful planning, especially so for something he was looking forward to, but considering they had just recently come back from the break season, a day off wasn't on the horizon for them. Put simply, Dojo hadn't gotten around to thinking about it yet. Recognizing his distraction-by-conversation plan wasn't working, he decided to change tack.

In the low light, Iku couldn't see what Dojo was doing as she felt her hand being lifted until she could feel the soft press of his lips to her knuckles. She stiffened immediately and swallowed a gasp, feeling awkward. The action wasn't unpleasant, but right after her reflection of how intimate the situation was, she felt as though she had been caught thinking something inappropriate. She could feel him pause uncertainly, lifting his face away from her hand just enough that she could still feel his warm breath cascading across her fingers. She consciously relaxed, closing her fingers lightly around his in encouragement. Dojo seemed to understand, lowering his lips to the back of her hand again and planting light kisses down to her wrist. When his nose met with the cuff of her sleeve, he turned her hand over and kissed the sensitive inside of her wrist at her pulse point. Coupled with the sensation of his breath feathering across her wrist, Iku could feel the heat of affection blossoming across her face and through her body. With an effort, she quelled the temptation to guide the mouth on her wrist to meet her own.

Dojo looked up in the general direction of her face, surprised to see he was now able to make out the outline of her face as his eyes adjusted to the low light. Her thumb brushed across his hand in an imitation of the way his had earlier, which he took as a good sign that she was no longer concerned about the precariousness of the elevator situation. He let go of her hand and slowly, carefully trailed his fingers down her arm, over her shoulder, over her collar to cup her face (taking care not to accidentally poke her eye). Iku didn't move except to tilt her face into his hand ever so slightly, so Dojo leaned over the book cart and pulled her forward a little to bring their lips together. In the darkness, he met the corner of her mouth first and felt her small grin at his slight faux pas, but he quickly adjusted to fit their lips together properly. Iku sighed into the kiss, pushing against the obtrusive book cart in an attempt to get closer and to support her weight as she unconsciously listed forward. Feeling Iku's responsiveness, Dojo curled his fingers into her hair and tilted his head further. When they pulled back a few inches for a breath, Iku almost fell forward chasing him to prolong the kiss. Dojo steadied her instinctively, and as he was about to close the distance between their faces, the car creaked and jolted again, this time accompanied by muffled voices from outside.

Iku jolted back, abandoning all physical contact immediately and snapping to attention. Dojo straightened as well and turned to the doors, now shaking with an effort to fight whatever assailant was attacking from the other side. The doors creaked miserably, jarring and lurching open bit by bit under the weight of a crowbar and a few sets of hands.

"Dojo, Kasahara-san! Are you in there?" Komaki's voice called from the other side, along with a few more grunts of effort from the others pulling at the doors.

"Yes, we're here." Dojo could tell now that the elevator had moved to their floor before stopping and shutting off, and could also tell that whatever violent solution was currently being employed was probably not something the official emergency caller had come up with. A few patrons gawked from behind their rescuers, whispering and wondering what sort of emergency required so much noise and brute force on the previously innocent elevator car. With a last yank, the doors were open wide enough to fit the book cart through. Commander Genda swung the crowbar over his shoulder, looking satisfied with having pried the doors almost fully open. Dojo glared up at him.

"Could you not have waited for the repairmen to arrive instead of attacking the elevator like that? You've disrupted this whole reading room with this unnecessary racket!" he snapped venomously, conscientiously keeping his voice lowered to regular speaking volume.

"What? The elevator still needs to be fixed, we're just getting the employees out so they can do their jobs in the meantime. Plus, we need to slap out-of-order signs on the doors, and I'd rather do that with the car empty." Next to him, Tedzuka and Komaki, crowbar-less, were looking like they'd done all the work of wrenching the doors open. They caught their breath and straightened out their suits.

Dojo scratched the back of his head in irritation, pulling the short list he had brought with him out of his pocket. "Honestly, I didn't even have that much-" he turned back to Iku and cut off abruptly, wishing she were entirely less obvious. She was looking down and off to the side, hunched over the book cart, trying to hide her face and be casual about it at the same time and horribly failing both. He could practically feel the heat coming off her face from where he was standing. "Anyway," he grumbled, grabbing one end of the book cart roughly to drag it out, "don't you have work to do? What are you all standing around here for?"

Genda's grin turned into a leer, determined to get a jab in before Dojo could get away. "What were you two doing in there, anyway? Maybe we should have just let you wait around for the repairmen…" Dojo was expecting the taunt and turned a murderous glare back on the commander.

"We were waiting in a broken elevator car suspended three flights above ground level for the repairmen to come fix it, _Commander_. Will that be all?" he ground out icily. He turned brusquely, pulling the cart and Iku behind him past the other men and into the space of the reading room, intending to get back to work. Iku, flustered, bowed briefly to Genda and the others and mumbled a quick "thanks" before following Dojo, who had taken over her book cart for the time being. Komaki, infected by Genda's jovial nature, was grinning too as the pair stalked away.

"Too obvious, Commander; he saw that one coming," he joked, brushing off his suit one last time before turning to return to his own tasks with Tezuka. Genda barked out a loud laugh and fell into step beside them.

"I can tell! It's getting harder and harder to catch that guy off-guard!"

When they were well into the stacks and surrounded by bookshelves, Dojo relinquished the book cart to Iku.

"Sorry…" she mumbled sheepishly. "I couldn't keep a straight face at all just then…" Dojo watched her hands fidgeting on the handle of the book cart, replacing his glare with a small smile. He raised a hand to her bowed head, patting it softly.

"It doesn't matter; not your fault." After a moment's consideration, he continued, "think of someplace you want to go on our next day off, okay?" Iku looked up from under his hand, feeling a smile grow on her face, which was now a significantly more normal color. She nodded.

"Okay! Thanks, Instructor Dojo." With that, she pushed her cart off to where she needed to shelve the books. Dojo looked back to his own work, eyes skimming over the list of titles and call numbers on his small sheet of paper. He wondered, as he set off to look for the books on his list, when Iku would stop appending "Instructor" to his last name.

* * *

 _A/N: I started this like six months ago intending for it to be significantly shorter... short enough to go into my Library Anecdotes series. The words just kept coming tho; I had to resolve it!_


End file.
